Best/easiest formats

[fjortiz00]

I have been trolling around but can't seem to find what i am looking for.
I have two goals and any help on any of them would be appreciated.
1) Rip my purchased DVDs to HDD. (best quality/smallest size/playable by
MVP)
2) Record SD television to HDD using PVR150 (best quality/smallest size/playable by MVP)

I have a 36" SD TV and an ONKYO A/V receiver connected to the MVP. I don't yet have the cash to build a full HTPC or an HDTV to hook it up to.

I am using the latest GBPVR 99.5?

I have downloaded all kinds of software (yes, some of it has nothing to do with what i am trying to do) Gordian KNot, Mplayer/Mencoder, ffdshow, ac3filter, dvd decrypter, VLC, VirtualDub, VOB2MPG. All I have acheived is confusion. Im interested in learning about encoding and translating, demuxing and resyncing, but I can't find a place to start.

I record with the PVR150 (HIGH setting) it creates an MPG (2Gb+ for an hour show) which plays fine, but I am running out of disk, i need a better but not overly complex solution.

[adamspud]

Search google for FairUse Wizard - it rips DVD's to a AVI format of about 700mb - you can choose codec and other options when ripping.

I found it when coding for my Archos Gmini 400

It might be listed on http://www.gmini400.com

Adam

[nitrogen_widget]

I recently downloaded some video in X264 format which I guess is an opensource h264 format.

The quality was fine.
about the same as Xvid or Divx.
what blew me away though was the small size of the video files.
A 41 minute TV show at 175mb that looked just fine on my TV?

Too bad there are no free & easy ways to convert to x264.

[bits]

One way to go with this is to get more HDD space...its cheap and the easiest solution.

Unless you have a screamer of a pc then you will spend lots of time re-encoding mpeg2 to...DivX or WMV or MP4 or .....

I have walked around this issue many many times and have always gone back to mpeg2 + lots of HDD space but then again IMO ripping commercial DVDs to HDD is a waste of time...unless you are really serious about it(high end PC, raid, money and time to burn). But if I were to pick a lossy format I would go with DivX because it usually takes less time to convert to and there are lots of free apps that can do DivX quite nicely. Dr DivX is actually pretty good and it is free and there is a new app out now from Pegasus called DivX Author that cuts, adds transitions, menus ect...for around 40$

I do a lot of TV recordings and I find the best, fastest way to maintain PQ and keep file size to minimum is to cut the commercials out. I use comskip(freeware) to find the commercials and Videoredo to make the cuts. Cutting commercials will reduce the file size by 25-33%.

Lastely the MVP is not all that versitile when it comes to video formats, mpeg2 works for sure and some have gotten DivX to work but it is not all that robust for DivX.

[bits]

I recently downloaded some video in X264 format which I guess is an opensource h264 format.

The quality was fine.
about the same as Xvid or Divx.
what blew me away though was the small size of the video files.
A 41 minute TV show at 175mb that looked just fine on my TV?

Too bad there are no free & easy ways to convert to x264.

You can do it with Virtualdub-MPEG provided you download the x264 codec. Both are free. The problem at the moment is that there are not current media players that play h/x264 and no DVD players either. It would have to be played on your PC or on your TV using an HTPC.
I also think this will convert mpeg to x264: http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

[Withbothfeet]

2 pieces of software are required from SlySoft.
AnyDVD and CloneDVD Mobile.

AnyDVD will intercept the copy protection, and CloneDVD Mobile does the rest of the work including formating (encoding) it to Divx/Xvid, ZEN, iPod, PSP, or many other playable formats for whatever you want to view it on.
You can also pick your audio streams to include, subs if you want them, etc...
Adjust your quality settings, resolution, calculates an estimated output file size for you.

I have tried just about every one out there, and this is by far the best/easiest and best quality. IMHO it's the cats meow. But it does come down to each persons personal preference.

[nitrogen_widget]

You can do it with Virtualdub-MPEG provided you download the x264 codec. Both are free. The problem at the moment is that there are not current media players that play h/x264 and no DVD players either. It would have to be played on your PC or on your TV using an HTPC.
I also think this will convert mpeg to x264: http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

Actually,
I've had good success using older equiptment as client PC's just for video playback.

I build PC's as a side job & people just give me their old PC stuff.

For instance i've got an older 1ghz dell someone gave me that i'm setting up as a DVD player/ media player for the bedroom.
Not a lot of power & it's kinda big, but the thing is almost dead silent.

Pehaps when I get this hooked up I won't need to encode my video as i'll have a place to actually watch my TV shows in peace.

But i'll check out videora.
I'd love an autoGK type x264 convertor.
I like free & easy.

[fjortiz00]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X264

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

including AutoGK

[rscheller]

You didn't say anything about sound when playing your DVDs. I assume since you say you have an Onkyo A/V Receiver that when you currently play a DVD on your 36" SD TV, you are taking advantage of the 5.1 sound track, yes?

If so, then you'll loose that when playing any ripped DVD through the MVP since the MVP only does native stereo.

For me, part of the enjoyment of DVD movies is the 5.1 channel sound encoded into most of them.

[SuMo]

The problem at the moment is that there are not current media players that play h/x264 and no DVD players either.

:confused: HUH ? h264 was supported by apple (quicktime player) a long time ago, or perhaps I didn't understood what you were trying to say.........